| |
About
the reviews:
All reviews on LoveHKFilm.com
are accredited via a notation at the end of the review:
(Some Guy's
Name, Year)
A practical example:
(Elvis, 1965)
This means that
a reviewer named Elvis wrote the review, and 1965
was the year in which the review was written. We feel
that adding a year is necessary, as when a review is written
can easily affect the reviewer's subjectivity, objectivity
and choice of idiom. Also, reviews written before 1999 tend
to be poorly written because the writer probably only learned
to write recently.
Please keep in mind, all the reviews are the subjective opinions
of a sole reviewer and should not be viewed as any official
gospel/uttering. It's just one man/woman's opinion. Please
respect it. If not, you will be shown the door without delay
courtesy of an Austrian gentleman named Hauser.
Dissenting opinions are welcome, unless they involve name
calling or the use of burlap sacks and rodents to inflict
physical and/or psychological damage.
Most
Current Reviews:
| 2008 | 2007 |
| 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |
2008
All About Women
Ballistic
The Beast Stalker
Butterfly Lovers
Champions
City Without Baseball
CJ7
Connected
A Decade of Love
An Empress and the Warriors
Fatal Move
The Forbidden Legend:
Sex & Chopsticks
Forgive and Forget
Happy Funeral
High Noon
Hong Kong Bronx
Ip Man
Kung Fu Dunk
Kung Fu Hip Hop
L For Love, L For Lies
La Lingerie
Legendary Assassin
Linger
Love is Elsewhere
The Luckiest Man
Missing
Moss
My Wife is a Gambling Maestro
Nobody's Perfect
Ocean Flame
Painted Skin
Playboy Cops
Red Cliff
Rule No. 1
Run Papa Run
scare 2 die
See You in You Tube
Some Like It Hot
Sparrow
Storm Rider - Clash of Evils
Tactical Unit - The Code
Three Kingdoms:
Resurrection of the Dragon
Ticket
True Women For Sale
Two Stupid Eggs
The Way We Are
The Vampire Who Admires Me
Wushu - The Young Generation
Yes, I Can See Dead People
2007
Anna and Anna
The Assembly
Beauty and
the 7 Beasts
Besieged City
Blood Brothers
Breeze of July
Brothers
Bullet & Brain
The Closet
Contract Lover
Dancing Lion
The Detective
The Drummer
Exodus
Eye in the Sky
Flash Point
Forest of Death
Gong Tau
The Haunted School
Hooked on You
House of Mahjong
In Love with
the Dead
Invisible Target
It's a Wonderful
Life
Kidnap
Kung Fu Fighter
Kung Fu Mahjong
3 - The Final Duel
The Lady Iron Chef
Love in the City
Love Is Not
All Around
Lust, Caution
Mad Detective
Magic Boy
The Magic Gourd
Ming Ming
A Mob Story
Mr. Cinema
Naraka 19
Protégé
The Pye-Dog
Secret
Shamo
Simply Actors
Single Blog
Summer's Tail
Super Fans
Sweet Revenge
The Sun Also Rises
Triangle
Trivial Matters
Twins Mission
Undercover
The Warlords
Whispers and Moans
Who's Next
Wonder Women
2006
2 Become 1
49 Days
After This Our
Exile
The Banquet
Battle of Wits
Bet to Basic
Black Night
Cocktail
Confession of Pain
Curse of
the Golden Flower
Dating a Vampire
Diary
Dog Bite Dog
Don't Open Your
Eyes
Dragon Tiger Gate
Election 2
Exiled
Fatal Contact
Fearless
Feel It Say It...
Half Twin
Happy Birthday
The Heavenly Kings
Heavenly Mission
I'll Call You
Karmic Mahjong
Isabella
Lethal Angels
Lethal Ninja
Love @ First Note
Love Undercover
3
Marriage with
a Fool
McDull, the Alumni
Men Suddenly
in Black 2
Midnight Running
Mr. 3 Minutes
My Kung-Fu Sweetheart
My Mother
is a Belly Dancer
My Name is Fame
Nothing is Impossible
The Postmodern
Life of My Aunt
Re-cycle
Rob-B-Hood
The Shopaholics
Superkid
The Third Eye
Undercover
Hidden Dragon
Undying Heart
We Are Family
Wife From Hell
Wise Guys Never
Die
Wo Hu
2005
2 Young
Ah Sou
All About Love
AV
b420
Bug Me Not!
The China's
Next Top Princess
A Chinese Tall
Story
Colour of the
Loyalty
Crazy N' The City
Demoniac Flash
Divergence
Dragon Reloaded
Dragon Squad
Drink-Drank-Drunk
Election
Embrace Your Shadow
Eros: The Hand
Everlasting Regret
The Eye 10
Futago
Himalaya Singh
Home Sweet Home
House of Fury
Initial D
It Had To Be You
Kung Fu Mahjong
Kung Fu Mahjong 2
Moments of Love
Moonlight in Tokyo
The Myth
Perhaps Love
The Promise
PTU File - Death
Trap
Seoul Raiders
Set to Kill
Seven Swords
Slim Till Dead
SPL
The Unusual Youth
Wait 'Til You're
Older
Where is Mama's
Boy
2004
20 : 30 : 40
2046
6 AM
A-1 Headline
Ab-normal Beauty
Astonishing
The Attractive One
Beyond Our Ken
Breaking News
Butterfly
Colour Blossoms
Cop Unbowed
Dating Death
Driving Miss Wealthy
Dumplings:
Three...Extremes
Elixir of Love
Enter the Phoenix
Escape From
Hong Kong Island
Explosive City
The Eye 2
Fantasia
The Foliage
Goddess of Mercy
Heat Team
Herbal Tea
Hidden Heroes
House of Flying
Daggers
In-Laws, Out-Laws
Itchy Heart
Jiang Hu
Koma
Kung Fu Hustle
Leave Me Alone
Leaving Me Loving
You
Life Express
Love Battlefield
Love is
a Many Stupid Thing
Love on the Rocks
Love Trilogy
Magic Kitchen
McDull, Prince
de la Bun
The Miracle Box
Moving Targets
My Sweetie
New Police Story
One Nite in Mongkok
Papa Loves You
Protégé
de la Rose Noire
Rice Rhapsody
Sex and the Beauties
Silver Hawk
Six Strong Guys
Super Model
Throwdown
Three of a Kind
The Twins Effect II
Unplugging Nightmare
A Wedding or
a Funeral
The White Dragon
A World Without
Thieves
Yesterday Once
More
|
|
About
the reviewers:
| Kozo | Sanjuro |
| LMFDean9 | LunaSea |
Kozo
Kozo was born in 1973 under a
star heretofore known as the Dog Star. He grew into a skinny,
short lad until he reached the age of 19, whereupon he was
no longer short. He is highly respected in a few inconsequential
social circles, though he is despised the world over. We believe
he's simply misunderstood.
Currently Kozo is searching for meaning
in life while watching as much mind-numbing HK Cinema as he
possibly can. He also builds models, reads books, writes occasional
fiction, watches Japanese Animation, and has an overwhelming
love for all things having to do with Sammi Cheng.
Kozo has been watching HK Cinema
since 1993, when UFO was just starting out and John Woo had
already left to make that sublime masterpiece Hard Target.
Despite many years of bad movies, box office depression, and
paparazzi terrorism, Kozo has continued to watch Hong Kong
movies with an enthusiasm best reserved for rooting for the
Golden State Warriors, which anyone will tell you is a hopeless
endeavor.
Still Kozo forges on, trying to find
the good movies among the bad ones, and bad movies among the
purely awful ones. It is a quest he will continue until end
of time, or until English subtitles are removed from Hong
Kong Films. In the meantime, Kozo will continue to update
this site as his alter ego, Webmaster Ross Chen.
Kozo can be reached here.
All reviews were written by Kozo
unless marked otherwise. When Kozo shares space with another
reviewer, the review is marked with this symbol: ¥
Kozo has written 1234 reviews.
Sanjuro
The late seventies gave birth
to Star Wars, disco and Sanjuro a.k.a. Calvin McMillin.
Though Sanjuro is primarily
a reviewer, he is kind enough to provide much of the fun trivia
(i.e. awards) that grace the review archive.
Calvin graduated Summa Cum Laude
from Oklahoma State University with credentials that would
make most of us jealous. His primary focus is writing, and
he's currently working on a novel that he hopes will one day
see publication. He favors the work of Raymond Chandler, Mark
Twain and Ma Wing-Sing, creator of the ever-popular comic
book Fung Wan.
Calvin's interest in Hong Kong
Cinema was spurred on by a little movie called Once Upon
a Time in China 2. Since then, he has diligently devoured
the works of the Tsui Hark, John Woo, Jackie Chan, Jet Li
and pretty much anyone else in HK Cinema who has some sort
of "name" recognition.
Calvin is also a big fan of the Monkey
King, and absolutely loathes Gen-Y Cop Edison Chen.
He's also rather ambivalent about LoveHKFilm.com
whipping boy Ekin Cheng. Despite that, his DVD collection
features many fine films starring A Man Called Ekin.
Those looking for more from
Calvin can check out his blog, Ronin on Empty.
Reviews written by Sanjuro are indicated
by this symbol: §
Sanjuro has written 279 reviews.
LunaSea
Reviewer Lee Wong (a.k.a. LunaSea)
passed away in August of 2002. His contributions to this web
site—as well as his friendship to the Webmaster—can
never be repaid. His reviews will remain on this site indefinitely.
The following is his original
bio:
Luna Sea is both a legendary J-rock
band, and reviewer Lee Wong's nickname.
Lee is a Chinese-Italian in his early
twenties. In his short existence, he's lived on two continents
and in four different countries. An accomplished linguist,
he is currently studying Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, and fine-tuning
his Korean. His favorite pastimes include reading wuxia novels
and manga, listening to Japanese and Korean music, watching
just about every Asian film he can get his hands on, and most
importantly stuffing himself to death with dim-sum and sashimi,
"watered" down by a good bottle of soju.
While a big fan of arthouse films,
LunaSea watches just about everything. His favorite genres
are road movies, gangster comedies and realistic romantic
dramas. His favorite actors include Choi Min-Shik, Jeon Do-Yeon,
Bae Doo-Na, Ahn Sung-Ki, Song Kang-Ho, Koji Yakusho, Tony
Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung, Shu Qi and Zhang Ziyi. His
favorite directors change every three days, and at the moment
they are Hong Sang-Soo, Wong Kar-Wai, Hayao Miyazaki, Edward
Yang and Hou Hsiao-Gsien.
LunaSea's reviews will mostly
focus on Korean, Chinese (Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong)
and Japanese Cinema, but he is also a huge Bollywood fan,
loves anime and is increasingly interested in Thai Cinema.
Reviews written by LunaSea are indicated
by this symbol: ±
LunaSea has written 43 reviews.
Kevin Ma
Kevin Ma was
born in the great city of Hong Kong in 1984. He moved to America
almost 9 years later, where he began to fall in love with
the art of cinema. No one understood why he would watch "My
Girl 2" more than once, but that's just how much he loved
films.
Kevin recently completed his Bachelor
of Arts degrees in Communcation and Film Studies at the University
of California Davis. During his undergraduate academic career,
he managed to learn about the many great national cinematic
traditions such as New German Cinema and the world of silent
films, but his greatest achievement of all was studying in
Japan as an exchange student for a year. Unfortunately, he
has still yet to pick up any knowledge about anime.
His favorite filmmakers span all
over the world, including Wong Kar Wai, Alejandro Gonzalez
Inarritu, Bong Joon Ho, among many others. Currently he is
exploring postgraduate education opportunities, one of which
include studying film production in his hometown.
Kevin previously went by the internet handle "LMFDean9" on this website, but he's since come to his senses and takes credit for his work.
Reviews
written by Kevin are indicated by this symbol: £
Kevin Ma has written 103 reviews.
Guest
Reviewers
LoveHKFilm.com
occasionally
has outside contributors to the review pages, though the current
roster is based more on potentially interested writers than
an actual army of self-proclaimed cinema journalists. At any
rate, the current line-up of people who have—or may yet—contribute
are listed here.
Reviews written by a Guest Reviewer
are indicated by this symbol: Œ
Guest Reviewers have written
82 reviews.
Magicvoice (Jennifer
Marley)
Magicvoice grew up in a small
town just north of Syracuse, New York. Like everyone else
on this site, she has a another name besides Magicvoice: Jennifer
Marley.
Jennifer was born in the seventies
and currently maintains a residence in the City of Angels.
A radio/television communications major, she currently works
for Fox Television doing graphics for on-air promos.
Like everyone else with some form
of opinion, Jennifer has her favorites. She's particularly
partial to the work of Hong Kong's resident wild man, Anthony
Wong Chau-Sang. Jennifer and her husband have been into Hong
Kong Cinema for a while, and have seen their share of good
and bad flicks from the Hollywood of the East.
RainDog (Greg Maier)
RainDog (a.k.a. Greg Maier) was born
outside Chicago long enough ago to currently feel very, very
old.
After far more education than
could actually be useful—a B.A. in English and a Masters
in creative writing—RainDog has worked as a webmaster,
a professional unemployed person, and is currently something
called an "Educational Developer," the duties for
which apparently include trying to find open parking spaces
on a university campus and instructing people how to keep
computer mice out of their mouths. He hopes his resume will
someday qualify him for the management track at a swanky Subway
Sandwiches franchise.
When RainDog's not trying to
recruit henchmen for his evil plans (he currently has a Guido
and a Vinnie, but is still looking for a Knuckles), he is
usually at home staring at either his TV or computer, and
watching Asian movies, anime, cable programming or sports.
Alternately, he spends his time injuring himself cycling or
lifting heavy things, drinking and dining with friends, gibbing
people online, and plotting with his henchmen. Occasionally,
people send him money and he updates web sites.
His greatest desires are to
find the Right Woman (6', 36-24-36, professional ballerina
and quantum physicist, preferably named Samantha) and to sell
out as quickly as possible for large sums of money. Anyone
who's actually interested in allowing RainDog to sell out
for obscene amounts of cash, or is a leggy woman named Samantha,
or is just bored and (he can't stress this enough) not insane,
can contact RainDog at gmmaier@ilstu.edu.
Rudolph Tiemler
Rudolph Tiemler is a proudly
rain-drenched resident of the Seattle area and University
of Washington graduate, who realized back in 2000 that he
couldn't afford Japanese animation fandom, and instead embraced
HK cinema. Since that time, he has broadened his horizons
to include period swordplay films from Japan and new releases
from Korea.
When he's not in the LoveHKFilm.com
forum chatroom evangelizing to people about the original Zatoichi
film series, he enjoys cooking, cycling around downtown Seattle,
playing video games, and occasionally sitting down to make
a dent in his growing pile of new DVDs.
In between all these distractions,
Tiemler is looking for a better job than his current position
in electronics retail—preferably something that engages
his creative side—and for an intelligent and reasonably
attractive woman who loves or can learn to love pan-Asian
films. If you know where he can find these things, or simply
want to hear about the plan Zatoichi the blind swordsman has
for your life, then e-mail him at r_tiemler@yahoo.com.
JMaruyama (James Maruyama)
Ria Caronongan
David Harris
Adam Laidig
Stuart McDonald
Buddha's Grin (Lilia Lopez)
|
|
